On Jan. 13-15, the world’s largest retail conference and expo kicks off at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. NEC retail experts are putting the final touches on demonstrating how its leading-edge video analytics technologies transform the in-store experience for shoppers.

Visitors to NEC’s booth #1936 will tour a virtual store to see first-hand how these innovations bring better engagement with customers, while also delivering tangible business benefits for retailers. Video analytics solutions powered by the NEC Enterprise Video Analytics (EVA) platform enable retailers to garner extensive insights into shoppers:

This deeper understanding of shopper behavior can then be used to enable the ultimate, frictionless personalized shopping experience and make checkout and other in-store processes more efficient and effective—for retailers and shoppers alike.

During the event, NEC will focus on four areas of the retail experience—Customer, Operations, Analytics and Marketing, all powered by the NEC video analytics platform services. An in-booth tour starts with self-registration using NEC facial recognition software, which in turn enables multiple touchpoints and experiences throughout the booth.

Improving Store Operations

Big Show visitors also will get a glimpse of how facial recognition and data analytics assist retailers behind the scenes as well through improved business operations. NeoFace Watch uses real-time face recognition to provide retailers with an effective, transparent loss-prevention system. NEC will show how retailers can use this same technology to manage employees’ time and attendance as well. Additionally, booth visitors will get a first-hand look at NEC’s industry-leading point-of-sale hardware devices.

Up-to-the-minute sales data analytics helps retailers survive and thrive in this competitive marketplace. Reliable sales data and reporting enable tailored in-store offers to customers, plus aids in managing inventory and staffing. While in NEC’s booth discover ways analytics can be used to track demographic and traffic data related to in-store shoppers. Using facial recognition systems retailers are able to track repeat customers at a location without collecting any personally identifiable information. This information in turn helps drive marketing content and analyze purchase patterns.

Experience Fast, Frictionless Transactions

NRF expo attendees will also have the opportunity to interact with NEC customer Cali Group’s face-based kiosk when visiting NEC’s booth. The facial-recognition kiosk, now being rolled out at CaliBurger locations, shows how easy it is to deliver fast and truly frictionless transactions. Guests will peruse a menu, choose items and then pay for their virtual purchases without pulling out their wallets or personal devices. Face-based payments someday may replace credit cards as customers look for a more personalized experience like face-based kiosks without the long lines and wait times.

Representatives from the Cali Group will be on hand in the booth to answer questions about the innovative use of facial recognition technology in the Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) industry.

There is serious buzz surrounding big data that may make one wonder if it really is all that we hope. Fortunately, there are plenty of scenarios that showcase how big data makes a significant impact in the daily lives of just about everyone. Let’s take a look at a few…

Competitive Big Data

* Photo by infocux Technologies on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.

Football, or soccer as it’s known in the U.S., is the most popular sport in the world, making the 2014 World Cup one of the most important sporting events of the year. It will be watched by millions as Brazil and Croatia go head to head. Many of those avid fans won’t even stop to think about what is behind their ability to access information regarding the spectacle that is sure to be the World Cup. But it’s a lot of planning and preparation. Think of it this way:

Joseph and his buddy Sam are in Ireland, betting on the game with their friend Luke, who was lucky enough to attend. They are all posting on social media, gathering statistics on the two teams, the players and the weather. After all, outdoor sports are definitely impacted by weather. The three buddies are able to gather all this information at the “touch of their fingertips” because somewhere, someone thought to gather the information, parse into usable bits and serve it up for anyone to access.

Let’s review another scenario – professional sports are big, global business. An important aspect of that is recruiting. Just how much data would you have to collect in order to have a player’s stats just to see if he’s worth the money he wants. Now apply that business. There are massive amounts of data we want to harvest. Unfortunately, most of that data is unstructured. Fortunately, there are bigger and better servers to crunch that data into something usable. Couple that with services provided by experts such as the team at NEC, and you can really make big data work for you.

Speaking of NEC and the FIFA World Cup, the company will provide information and communications technologies to the Arena da Curitiba in Brazil, including security via technologically-advanced monitoring, IP and wireless infrastructure for telephone, as well as sophisticated sound systems, giant screens, lighting and air conditioning. These systems are all fully integrated by NEC, whose know-how in providing integrated solutions for stadiums is supported by projects spanning a variety of countries.

Little Monsters of Big Data

When we think about big data it conjures up images of large conglomerations churning away at all sorts of analytics in order to build a better mousetrap. But “business” is not necessarily corporate, suit-and-tie, in-office operations. In fact, there are interesting uses for big data cropping up everywhere. Case in point, Lady Gaga’s business manager, Troy Carter, is a big data fan. In fact, he created a fan-centric community called www.littlemonsters.com by mining the singer’s 31 million plus fans on Twitter and 51 million on Facebook.

Big Data Bring Back My Internet!

There you are, rushing around to update your web site with the latest, communicate with your store, and ensure that not only are customers served, but you have plenty of product in stock when BAM! Everything goes dark. No, it’s not the next zombie apocalypse; it’s just another service outage. But, what if, before you even called your service provider company, it knew about the outage. How? Big data. It is the hope of many communications industry leaders that appropriate mining of big data will help manage outages and even disasters. By looking for other patterns when customers begin to notify them of a problem, or even mining social media, it is possible for these providers to become more proactive. This spells fewer outages and more control for the communications companies to provide better service. Not to mention less interruption of your digital life and your bottom line.

Bottom line – big data impacts just about every company, organization, law enforcement agency and gaming company on the planet. Because gamers are so engaged, being able to mine their data provides interesting information regarding their behaviors. In fact, that is the very business model of Badgeville, which sells gamification technology for measuring and influence user behavior. The truth is the more they know about your behavior, the better companies can fulfill your needs, wants and desires.

Big Data Means Finding the Right Partner

The truth about big data is its immense power when in the right hands. This requires major computing power, as well as a partner that can ensure the large amounts of unstructured data are compiled into a meaningful metric. Fortunately, NEC has solutions for your big data needs that fully encompass the requirements to make the most of your big data. You can find more information on NEC’s big data solutions here.